At least one high-ranking U.S. official thinks someone on the Korean side might have planted bone fragments in U.S. beef in order to block entry.
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The Bone Fragment Plot
This entry was written by Robert Koehler, posted on December 8, 2006 at 3:16 am, filed under Asides, ROK-US Issues. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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17 Comments
Pawi.
Well, the US gets very little sympathy from me in this case. The US government isn’t above using protectionism to boost its own industries…sometimes blocking products from countries it has signed a free trade agreement, nonetheless.
Not that I disagree but…no examples -> no point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.....er_dispute
Not so sure that is comparable. The heart of the softwood dispute is that of different standards for pricing. Both sides see the other as “breaking” the FTA.
Not an expert on this so with a grain of salt…
The Goat, it’s protectionism. The WTO ruling against the US proves it is so.
I was trying to find a reference regarding American protectionism of its corn industry… note why US Colas taste different - it’s the Fructose, stupid… I found this interesting Wikipedia article regarding past protectionism that preceeded the Great Depression: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.....Tariff_Act
Bipolar, good one on the fructose.
SomeguyinKorea,
That hardly makes it a cut and dry case however. Recently the WTO ruled in favor of the US. It was, and to some degree, still is a pretty contentious issue with no real cut and dry winner, loser, good guy or bad guy. Canada ‘won’ most of the decisions but not all - clearly showing that they were operating in a gray area. The Canadian government, by offering 1.2billion in “aid” (in an election year of course) did not really help their own argument that it was not a subsidized industry.
CBC
(apologize in advance if I messed up the links)
This here is also a pretty good summary.
When all the (saw)dust settled, the countries were able to come to a 7 year agreement.
The key difference here is that Canada/US went through legal channels to have pricing dispute solved - with mixed results. The bottom line is that the countries were able to come to an understanding and make an agreement. The potential (excuse the use) salting of the shipped meat in order to reject the shipments on unagreed upon conditions to “protect” the local markets goes way beyond that.
If the allegations are proven to be true…watch for some real fireworks in the near future. If not, it is just a whiny response to a childish interpretation of the agreement.
It is not U.S. protection of its corn farmers that has caused the ubiquitous use of corn syrup in place of sugar in the U.S. — it is the protection of U.S. sugar producers.
Protection (of sugar) = higher prices
Higher prices = increased use of alternatives (corn syrup)
U.S. protection of sugar growers is also the result of anti-Castro policy.
What leads people to believe the danger is in the bone?
If by “danger” you mean the danger of consumers purchasing US beef if given the choice, then the danger is in the bone because Koreans prefer to eat bone-in meat — ribs and oxtail.
But if you’re referring to the health risk, then the issue is the (real but remote) possibility that the bone fragments could be from the spinal cord, where the BSE lurks.
H&T, the danger is in having meat industry people manage the USDA, promoting the meat industry at the expense of public health and safety in the US. Naturally, the USDA tells us that they wish to eliminate 90% of testing for BSE because there is none but if one does not look or ask, one will not find it. These guys have such political pull that even Secretary of State Rice recently pressed the Japanese to resume US meat imports. A secretary of state pushing hotdogs, if you will!
I also remember the legal mugging that some Texas cattlemen, led by billionaire Paul Engler, owner of Cactus Feeders, Inc. (meat industry) tried to inflict upon Oprah Winfrey but their suit had no merit
drive-by lawsuit. Considering all that and more than can not be condensed here, the meat industry in the US can go to hell until they are well-done.Certain parties that do not want an American influence in the marketplace, here in Korea (North Korea and South Korean nationalistic morons), wish to use this to sabotage any FTA agreement. Though the FTA is important to Korea, the US will hurt any chance it has of passing it if they allow special interests to push a meat agenda.
P.S. — Here is one very interesting bit of source material regarding the Cattlemen vs. Oprah Winfrey.
Can’t rememember when I first became aware of the “corn-syrup vs sugar in US-bottled soft drinks” issue; maybe it was around the time of the “new Coke” debacle, which was in 1985 if I recall.
So I got the idea that the sugar-sweetened Coca-cola of my youth (1950’s-60’s) was indeed better tasting. Don’t know offhand when they first went to corn syrup instead.
Here in San Antonio it’s possible to get Mexican bottled soft drinks, to include Coke, in the convenience stores/ supermarkets — I gather it’s sort of a “gray market”, not against the law but in technical violation of various bottlers’ agreements.
But private enterprise shipping cases from across the border is evidently not significant enough to get anybody excited; there was an interesting article about this subject in the WSJ sometime fairly recently.
Anyway–you can get a 12 ounce bottle of Mexican bottled Coca Cola in the supermarket here for 99 cents. The classic Coke bottle shape, real glass, seems like it’s the exact same as the old returnable bottle but you throw it away just like the plastic.
So I tried one. Couldn’t tell any difference from a US bottled corn syrup Coke. So much for my memory, though I suppose it’s possible the problem could be aging of the taste buds.
dogbertt, you’re right about Cuba. I don’t know if it’s still the case, but Canada used to get a lot of its sugar from Cuba.
Paul H., you’re right about Coca-cola. It seems to me that it’s better tasting in Canada, and, last time I tried, even better tasting in Europe (particularly in the Netherlands).
I agree with R. Elgin. The meat & dairy industry in the US has spent decades misleading consumers. It can hardly cry foul now if the Korean meat industry misleads consumers over here.